NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – He had just finished an exam and was ready to relax with friends. That is, until he saw people in masks and hoodies walk around his car.
“I was just sitting in my car, texting them. … As I did, somebody ran up,” said the carjacking victim.
He said that someone banged on his driver-side window and waved a gun, instructing him to get out of the car.
This neighbor, whose identity we’ve withheld for safety reasons, said the four masked suspects also demanded his belongings.
“They definitely seemed pretty young,” he said.
He filed a report with the police when he was carjacked at gunpoint in the 2900 block of St. Ann Street. Just three days later, and less than a mile from where he was carjacked, beloved grandmother Linda Frickey was killed in a brutal armed carjacking allegedly executed by four teens.
Police eventually found Frickey’s abandoned car, one block over from the scene of the other victim’s carjacking.
“I’m definitely thankful I wasn’t hurt,” he said.
Another neighbor said, “I would have to think that somehow, somewhere, because it was in such a small area, that there may be some correlation. … It just brings the fear even more. We’re all scared to go outside.”
The NOPD confirmed they did arrest a 15-year-old female for the carjacking on St. Ann.
“It makes me feel a little better that they are, in fact, looking and trying to get this case resolved,” she said.
But for this neighbor and mother of two, trying to get in and out of her house safely with her children, it’s not enough.
With so many violent incidents so close to their homes, those on St. Ann Street now are trying to reclaim a feeling of safety on their own.
“If someone’s coming in for the afternoon, or leaving in the morning, we call each other (and say), ‘Hey, I’m about to walk out.’ And we just watch each other get into our car, so we feel safer,” she said. “Yes, we may have to consider moving if it doesn’t get any better, because it’s hard to sleep sometimes.”
The neighbor says he still has not recovered his Silver Honda accord.
The NOPD said, “There is currently no information related to an established connection between that incident and the fatal carjacking (of Frickey) that occurred in the 300 block of North Scott Street.”
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